What a Pretty Girl
by Ophelias dream
Summary: wow! my first story out of the norm... of my stories.he plays for her every night. but she never hears the last song. RH
1. The Show Must Go On

Disclaimer.

**_And The Show Must Go On _**

_What she'd given up she'd never know she never left that option open for herself. She didn't yearn for it or wish for it, she didn't want to know because she didn't think about it. But he did; Of course he did and if she had let her thoughts wander to it for a moment she'd long for it too._

_She'd never abandoned him though, at least she didn't think so, she stills saw him and talked to him; she still listened to his music._

_He played at a shop buried in the heart of the city, the real city, where real people went, not tourists. He played their once a week, and she almost never missed it. Almost._

_The last time she hadn't gone had been her wedding day. He'd been invited. _

_No matter how long ago their romance was or how long she'd known him, his music never ceased to amaze her._

_His music was his passion. His life. She knew that, and she always wanted to support it. Sometimes she wouldn't talk to him, maybe he was talking to a pretty girl or looking particularly forlorn, or maybe it just didn't seem like he would want to talk to her. He always knew she came though and that's all that really mattered. _

_She always sat in the middle, the middle seat of the middle table in the middle of the room. She always sat there; she'd picked her seat carefully without thinking about it at all. She never knew how she'd picked her seat because she never thought of it but she'd picked it because it wasn't close enough to really feel the music, but wasn't far enough so that she couldn't hear, she picked it because it wasn't too far in the dark so that he couldn't see her but not too close to the light so that he could see her well. Shed picked it to be and acquaintance, to be there for him but by no means intimate._

_He sat in front of the crowd with his guitar each night, and played old songs he'd written years age and sometimes new ones. She never understood the new ones. The old ones she knew too well to forget._

_She always stayed the whole show. People sometimes thought she was his lover, then they saw the ring and then they thought she was his wife. But slowly, people who came regularly started to figure things out._

_She couldn't be his wife because every night a different man would come to pick her up. Every night another man with a ring so akin to her own would take her hand and escort her out._

_Then they thought it was an affair, they never did figure it out. Only two men knew; only two men and a woman._

--

Tonight was the same as any other; she came in and took her seat in the middle, and watched him. He sat there and for the first time she realized how strange it was he came here every week. How strange it was that he came here still. He doesn't need the money, she thought; she'd always supposed he came here because it was an outlet but the way he looked just then looked like he didn't want to be there at all.

She already made her presence known to him. She'd walked in the door and smiled.

"Hey" she said with a smile pausing for a second by his chair incase he was in the mood to talk, he never was these days.

"Hey" he said softly, he looked at her, like he wanted to say something but nothing came out, so she shrugged and gave a small wave and went to find her seat.

-

Her husband always made sure she was okay, sometimes he didn't ask or let her know, but he'd always be checking in his own way. He always left work a little earlier each day to come and see her. He always called on her in the middle of the day to see if she still loved him. He wasn't worried. He was just in love and after a few years he hadn't fallen out; that may be why he'd been able to capture her because his love never faltered, if anything, in time, it grew.

Everything she could have, he made sure to give her. He spoiled her and that was all there was too it. He was gentle and kind to her. Nobody understood that. On the outside he was worn and bitter, that's what everyone saw but people understood that that's what war did to a body. The war had used him well past his capabilities but for her he was always just-so.

It was a big house to live in everyday, and she was a small girl; but somehow her unfamiliarity with the luxury had made her the perfect face to come home to at the end of the day. She wasn't considered beautiful by means of regular standards but she was pretty, beauty was untouchable, but pretty, pretty was everyday and every moment. Her personality wasn't charismatic or endearing but that was part of being pretty. People loved it. Especially two.

He never knew what had happened between his wife and that other man, he didn't care and he didn't want to know. He'd gotten the girl in the end and he knew she would never leave him; not because he was arrogant or big-headed, which he was, but because he just knew she wouldn't.

--

And he played through the night, he didn't move from his stool. He sometimes shifted but he never got up, not until the end. In the past years she'd probably seen him standing two or three times. His music was his extension to the real world. He moved through it and saw through it, some days he would close his eyes and not look up once all night. Sometimes his eyes would wander but his music never faltered, in all her years of knowing him it hadn't faltered once.

--

He always waited for her to leave to play his last song. She never knew. But it was always the same song, and it was always about her. It was one song about her she'd never heard. It was a song he wished she'd hear and answer, but couldn't bring himself to play for her. No, he wasn't cruel. Because he still believed, deep down, she loved him most; but no matter what strong feelings lay buried he couldn't bring himself to uproot her foundations, she was happy. He could have made her happier, but she was still happy.

When they'd met he'd written songs for her, about her, and he would play them. She loved it when he made music; she especially loved when it was for her. He didn't always tell her but it was always for her.

When they had been together it had been perfect, as perfect as romance could be. She was what his life needed. Without her it was dull, it was regular, almost dark, but with her it was perfect and somehow he'd done the same for her. Everything was perfect, everything was perfect until the war.

He'd had to leave her then, he'd had to fight; and she would wait for him to come back fighting from home, safe.

He'd come back for her, but someone else had come back first. Someone who needed her too, Someone who loved her too; Someone who, like him, needed a little light in his world. But did he ever shed some in hers? He didn't think so but it didn't really matter because he'd come too late, he'd gotten held back at the end of the war and in a months time someone had taken what was waiting for him.

She was his inspiration, she still was; how many songs had he written about her that no one had ever heard? He'd never made himself a name in music, he'd never tried very hard maybe because he couldn't stand the thought of using his love for her or maybe he was afraid he'd loose their Saturday night evenings together.

He loved it when he played in the restaurant because she always came, every time but once. She'd invited him to her wedding, he didn't go still half wishing she'd come back to him, so he waited playing his guitar playing every song he ever wrote for her but she never came through the door. The next week, she didn't even mention it. She didn't notice he wasn't at her wedding.

That someone else had finished the deed; that someone else had taken every last bit of her from him everything except his memories and those memories could just about kill him.

But she still came every week, he couldn't understand why she was a shell of the lover he had the precious pearl inside was in another man's hand. He wouldn't stop her from coming because he still loved her and he wouldn't stop playing as long as she came. So he watched her and he longed for her but she never came to him when he needed her most. Not when some other woman had tried to claim him, not when he was feeling his worst, she never came when he wanted her to say anything to him more then anything else. She only spoke to him when it didn't matter. And someone else always took her home at the end of the night.


	2. Fancy Seeing You Here

**_Fancy Seeing You Here _**

He walked the streets during the day and worked at night, except Saturday. He sometimes walked with direction, sometimes without. Today he just wandered. He wandered up this street, across this one, down that one, and around that block; and that's how he saw her. It was the first time he had seen her out of his café for years. She was entering a coffee shop, no doubt the same one she went to every day. Perhaps she got the same thing every day, walked in at the same time and said the same thing:

"One large coffee, hold the cream, two lumps of sugar please. Oh, and a chocolate croissant."

Or, "Earl Grey tea, no sugar. Oh, and one blueberry scone. Please" then maybe she'd flash a smile and move on; every day.

He could imagine the things she'd say; it would always be the same. That's how she was. It was so straight forward, so orderly, so unlike him, yet ironically he loved it; probably because he loved everything about her.

He stood across the street, waiting for the stream of cars to break so he could cut across. He wondered if he would go into the shop. He wondered if he would confront her and say something to her; if he was brave enough to break the daily happenings of her day and week, just to say hi. The cars stopped for a moment, and he walked across the street, hands in his pockets, head bent down, still pondering.

By the time he got to the store front, he didn't have to ponder anymore because out she came with her cup of hot steaming something and a little brown bag with her every day pastry. She glanced at him, did a double take, and then walked briskly over smiling, her overly confident, stretched out, fake smile. She looked so unhappy underneath, he couldn't help but think if she were with him she'd be happy.

She stopped in front of him still smiling, "Ron! How nice to see you, I haven't seen you for… well" insert uneasy fake laugh, "not since last Saturday." And her smile stayed plastered on.

He wouldn't make her feel bad, he wouldn't talk about how unhappy she really was, he'd help her pretend to be happy and maybe she would be. So he smiled back.

"I've been fine, you know, wandering around." He waved his hand, as if they ran into eachother and made chitchat regularly. She smiled and they stared at each other, in an amicable yet uncomfortable silence in a contradictory moment in time.

She shifted her weight uneasily and he could feel the not so graceful exit coming on and he couldn't help himself.

He leaned in just as she started to turn away and grabbed lightly for the arm of her jacket,"Why are you unhappy?" he would liberate her and he would be there to run with her when she was freed.

"Pardon?" she didn't seem to be expecting this she looked mildly surprised and glanced around uncomfortably.

"Why are you unhappy?" he demanded, harsher, and harsher, why was she pretending?

"I-I-," she stuttered along with her words, he so rarely caught her off her guard, he found it mesmerizing and horrible at the same time.

"Why don't you tell me? Why do you have that fake smile on your face? Why do you look so washed out? Why are you wearing that? why are you changing yourself to conform to whatever he wants you to? Why are you here, in this city, getting coffee? You changed and you don't like it… so why don't you let go?"

She wasn't taken aback anymore, or at least not purely so, now she also looked beyond angry.

"I cant believe this, I see you for the first time in years outside of your little café, where you play your music and don't acknowledge me, incase you didn't know and this is what you say? I see you there and the only time you open your mouth is to talk to some decked out girl that walks by; you go through life not doing anything! I don't even know if you have a job, you sing the same songs you've sung for as long as I've known you,and you cry. You don't do anything; you just make music and wander! And now you're attacking me, with the most words you've said to me in years, accusing me of being unhappy! I don't know where you think you come off Ron Weasley, but you have no right."

He smiles at her, really smiles.

"That's the most alive I've seen you in years. Maybe you don't feel happier, but don't you feel more—more alive?"

And she laughed.

"No Ron and as angry as I want to be with you; I'm so happy that I can recognize you right now."

"Recognize me?" and she smiles, really smiles.

"Yes, I see you play music and you wear so many layers I cant recognize the boy I knew in school but here you are just like I left you."

"Yea, just like you left me. Why don't you peel off you're layers and be the way you were when you left me too?" her face turned back to that of an over worked woman, and she paused before speaking.

"Ron—"

"Come on Hermione, just admit it you miss being you"

"Ron this is me." She said half forcefully and exasperated and half apologetic and sad.

"No, it isn't and you know it!" he almost yelled. What did it take to make her understand?

"Ron, you don't even know me!"

"Yes I do! I've known you half my life! And I know you have never looked so unhappy as you do now. In fact for the past few years I have barely seen you really smile once. Not once before today."

"Maybe you should have come to our house when we invited you to dinner, or did you have prior engagements every night? Maybe you should have come to my wedding then or were you too busy wandering the streets to make it for a couple hours of my life?" he didn't answer "Maybe if you'd bothered to get out of yourself for a little bit you'd have been able to be around to see me happy. But no, I don't suppose you could have done that could you have? It's just you and your guitar, and God knows what emotions to drive it." He just stared at her, unwilling to look away.

"What, did I strike a cord Ron?"

"You didn't come and hear me play that night." she looked at him first amazed and then tired, realization ran through her body.

"I can't believe you" she almost laughed.

"I ask you to make it to one day, one day of your life. One day, to acknowledge the happiness of someone you considered your best friend, at some point, and you couldn't come. You couldn't because I was so selfish I couldn't come to your café, the café I went to every single week for as long as you played there, the café that I went to even if there was somewhere else to be, the one I went to because of you. But you couldn't make it to my wedding." He didn't answer her. Why couldn't she see how unhappy she was?

"You don't belong to—"

"I don't belong to anyone Ron." She cut him off before his words could aggravate her.

"You don't belong with him then." He responded promptly.

"You can't say that." She answered quietly.

"I just did! You were stolen from me! This isn't right!" he yelled.

She eyed him wearily and opened her mouth to speak, words seemed to fail her. Then her eyes softened, an exasperated hunch of understanding rested on her back. She opened it again and nothing came out, finally she looked at him in the eye and said:

"I'm sorry Ron. I have to go to work." And she walked away. He didn't move for a few moments. He still couldn't understand, she loved him deep down, he knew she did but she didn't want to remember she did. He walked away and wandered the streets all the rest of the day, just like the day before.

That Saturday she still came to hear him play but she didn't acknowledge him as he walked in but she sat in her seat and listened to him play and He took her home again. Each time he played she came again. He couldn't stand it, she never talked to him, she never looked at him; she was killing herself and she was killing his music.

He talked to the manager one night, he wouldn't make it immediate but he'd ease himself out.


	3. No One Told Her

**_No One Told Her _**

It was before the war, everything happened before the war. And everything fell apart afterwards. They got together before the war, people expected it; people were happy for them but sad too. You get together before a war and you're asking for some heartache; not that he cared, war didn't stop love right?

They were sweethearts throughout school, even when they didn't know it. They were the ones you expected to live together forever, the ones you know who would enjoy it. They were not a match made in heaven but they were cute and they were as close as reality gets to perfect. But then again, war changes everything.

'I don't want to go Hermione' he confessed a week before he left.

'Ron! You-' she looked at him, almost like she couldn't believe he would say that. she thought about all the people that could die and the cause he was fighting for; yes, she'd miss him and if she lost him she didn't know what she would do but it was war and maybe that didn't make it worth it but it made it unquestionable. How could he not think so?

'I know, I _am _going,' he reassured her quickly 'I'm just saying, I don't want to.' he looked at her and was sad she didn't understand, it just made it harder to leave.

'What happens here Hermione?' he asked, 'What happens when I lose touch with the real world? Do I lose you? Do you wait? Do I expect you to wait? Is that even right?' he asked her. He realized she hadn't thought of it and it made him even more worried and more anxious to come home quickly.

'Ron,' she looked at him sternly. She knew what he must feel but there were more important things going on than him and her.

'You go to war, you fight and you don't lose touch; and I love you, so you never lose me and I wait until the war is over, you know I will wait. That's it and it is right because that's love.' she finished matter-of-factly; it should have made any man easy.

'Hermione,' he smiled sadly 'Oh Hermione, the logic of you.' he whispered.

She rose an eyebrow at him 'Is there something wrong with my logic Ronald?' she said half serious half teasing.

'No, I love that about you.' And he hugged her lightly, but firmly.

'But you know Hermione' he whispered in her ear still holding her, 'that's the thing about love, it isn't logical.'

She pulled back and looked into his eyes, 'That's just what people say when they can't understand, there is logic if you look for it.'

She was so sure of herself, he looked at her and he knew she couldn't live without logic. She wasn't strong enough for that, as long as she had theories and science to back her up she was okay; perhaps that is why it was so hard for her to give in to love because love took you where logic could not. When logic fails, love is sure to pick up the pieces; but logic never failed her, she didn't allow it and that's what worried him

He worried that she would think and would not care, that she would not forget but she would move on. He was worried because he was not logical.

That's how he left her the next week, logical and sure minded. He went and fought for her life. It wasn't as if the battle as intense and that it was man to man combat, it was strategy that would win the war, cunning and secrecy but men's lives still were in danger. It was the secrets that would hurt and save them and he had a secret. He had to keep the secret; his life depended on it because her world did. So he fought, he fought long after they thought the war was over, he fought the stragglers, the non believers, the delusionals, the heartbroken, he fought the hate that was left after the war; he would make it a clean finish if he had to dirty his own hands to do it. He need the world to be safe.

They didn't let him return home until it was done, he didn't go either, he was afraid of what he would find. But he knew she would wait, so he kept fighting to keep everything safe at home. He fought because he knew she would wait, she was too logical to not. Someone would tell her where he was, what he was doing, why he hadn't come home.

Finally, he was aloud to go home. The war wasn't the hard part he would tell his peers as he left for the last and true time. It's the aftermath; during the war you just want it over, you use any means in the heat of it all but as soon as it's over you realize you should have done this a little differently, should have thought through that a little bit more. But you don't, in war you can be carefree, because you reek no benefit from it but pain.

'It's all okay now.' he said to them then, 'I'm going home now.' and they smiled knowingly and thoguht, 'He must have a girl to go home to.'

He went home and he looked for her; and when he found her, it hit him. No one had told her.

She hadn't waited.


	4. Out of Site

_Out of Site_

_-  
_

He had decided and he was going to stick to his decision. He would stop playing, it wasn't a ruse to lure her or shock her, it wasn't a test; it was just all becoming too much. Seeing her every week, being around her but not being able to be with her; he would stop playing and give up and give in; he'd just leave her alone and when she found that inside she needed him, and had needed him all along, she would find him. That's what would happen, only if he was reduced to that. He had one last song for her. One last chance for the present, a chance he knew she would not pass up.

---

It was his last night; he sat up in the front playing his old songs and new songs. Once again he watched her come in, and situate herself comfortably in the middle—mid-crisis. He let his songs play on from memory and waited for his last song; their last chance.

He ended right at 10:00 right when he usually would wait for her to go home and then play his final song.

She waited a few moments and then got up to leave, that other man was already waiting for her outside, he was never late.

She couldn't leave yet, she just didn't know it yet. So for the first time he put down his guitar and walked over to her. It had been weeks since their encounter outside of the café, he had considered a couple times walking by the café he knew she went to every morning but stopped himself short many times. He already knew those efforts would be fruitless.

Tonight though, he walked up to her, and stood in front of her seat as she colleted her things and waited for her to stand, he knew would not be fruitless.

She nodded slightly and smiled softly as a hello.

He didn't touch her but stood close to her and looked down at her for a while. Now might be when she usually left but he always had one more song for her. Tonight was his last night playing for her and he had to play it for her. He had to finally make her see.

"Please," he said softly "I have one more song. I'm just taking a short break." He looked at her and he knew she would stay.

She looked back at him; she loved him, he saw it. It was love of the everlasting sort that was in her eyes.

"Okay," she said. "Of course I want to hear it." And she smiled; no matter what went on between them she always loved his music, because it was part of him that didn't make her feel uncomfortable.

He nodded at her and smiled crookedly and walked back to his stool. His smile took her aback; he hadn't smiled like that in years. She smiled herself and walked towards the door.

Picking up his guitar again he fiddled around; he was nervous. It was like being young and in love, asking her out for the first time, making the first grab for her hand or getting ready to kiss her for the first time. He wasn't nervous cause he didn't think she loved him, he knew she did, he was just nervous cause it was the first time he was going to play it for her.

He looked up and she had already gone through the door and was outside. He could see her talking to that other man, grabbing his hand and motioning inside. She was explaining probably. Good, he thought that man could hear the song too.

That man could see what he had ruined and feel bad, because Ron knew that was not a bad man, he was conceited and self serving but he wasn't bad.

Ron knew that man would not stand in the way of their love; not only was Ron sure he genuinely loved Hermione and would therefore never hurt her; he knew that that man was not a bad man.

--

Draco had, after all fought along side Ron; he had, in the aftermath, gone after anything left that would ruin the peace. No one ever knew what drove that man, and could only assume it was loss, for no one had ever known him to have gained anything.

He was injured in battle though, and sent home—sent home before Ron, sent home to her, to her hospital wing.

Ron and Him had never crossed paths, but he knew that Draco was no coward in the war, that there was no self serving purpose to his fighting. It wasn't vengeance even or anger, the only thing Ron could imagine, still, for any of Draco's strength was loss. Loss Ron pitied him for but did not want to trade with him for his own happiness. That's what happened though.

Draco went home and she hadn't known where Ron was or if he was okay and Draco hadn't know where Ron was either. The two of them were lost, for different reasons but it could not have felt that different. As Draco healed physically, they helped each other heal internally and they fell in love.

That was the story at least, but Ron couldn't imagine that you could really fall in love twice. He couldn't imagine she could do it twice. He couldn't imagine the heart had that capacity or the world that cruelness.

--

He started to strum the opening cords and people started to settle again. He played the first refrain, and repeated it again and again; he wouldn't start the song until she came in.

Outside in the night that man wove his fingers through hers and walked with her into the café.

He restarted the opening refrain once more, looking down at his guitar and his fingers. When he looked up she was beaming and smiling. It was that smile she always smiled with at him back at school; it was that glow of pure happiness and love that he remembered so often, but hadn't seen in so many years.

Ron smiled on the inside. This was the love they'd both depraved themselves of; this was what they both lost. but as he looked at her smile, her glowing skin and gleaming eyes he saw, and realized for the first time, that it was another mans touch that was turning her rosy and another mans love that was making her glow. It was all for someone else.

His head swam and his fingers numbed.

_No, no. Keep playing. The song. The song. Her song. Us. There is—there has to be hope._

But his arms began to get heavy none the less and his legs went numb and his mouth couldn't open to start the song.

The fist refrain played over and over in his head and clumsily came out through his fingers.

_Play, start! You'll see, you were meant to be. Love. Love conquers all. They never would have said something like that if it weren't true._

And he forced his fingers into the first refrain again and he looked up at her again. Her eyes turned to him and she smiled. That same smile that just minuets before he instinctively knew, meant she loved him. He saw friendship, and old love there. He saw the word 'brother' and 'past' stamped on her gaze. His fingers faltered they didn't stutter or slow, but faltered and stopped . He was right, it was an everlasting love, but never the same.

"I-I- I'm done. That's it. I- no- there's no more music for tonight." he stuttered and stood up hastily, looking back at them once more. Her and that man. He looked confused and she looked concerned. So concerned she was grasping his hand tensely.

Then he ran. Not literally. He gathered his things—there weren't many, just his guitar and its case—and walked out deftly.

He'd gotten it finally. It wasn't replacing him or forgetting him. It didn't matter if she loved him or not. They, her and that man, the two of them, were in love. They were what made her world go round. They were happiness and life

He was the lost one. Before he rounded the corner from the coffee house for the last time he turned back and he looked in the window, and he saw his own face, full of love and happiness looking down at hers, slightly distraught and confused. He saw himself and her together, him comforting her until she smiled. Then his face turned back into Draco's and the coffee house was out of site.

And in the cold night air he felt the biting bitterness and coldness of the city, he saw no romantic lights but felt a chill and a knife strike his heart. He closed his eyes and saw her, kissing him on the lips but he could not feel it. It had been fruitless before he even started his song. Love conquers all.

_Fin_

* * *

It really didnt end as seamlessly as i would have liked, thats what i get for writting half like a year ago though.  



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